


Tell Yourself You’re Up For This, Say So

by throughtosunrise



Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 09:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10716987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throughtosunrise/pseuds/throughtosunrise
Summary: Being the Pathfinder isn’t exactly easy, but Sara Ryder knows just enough to manage to bluff her way through pretty well most of the time.Trying to navigate wherever this thing she has with Peebee is heading, on the other hand?  That’s a challenge she hasn’t quite figured out how to rise to yet.Or: Ryder is a gigantic goober, and she knows it.





	Tell Yourself You’re Up For This, Say So

The meeting room on the Tempest was _warm_ , and that was the important part.

The temperature on Voeld was up by several degrees since the vault had come online a few weeks ago, but it was still a perpetual ball of ice, and would be for years yet; it was just a safer and more stable ball of ice now. Kett activity was heavily curtailed now that their base was disabled and the exaltation facility destroyed. With its ice running operations well underway, the outpost at Taerve Uni was already carving a place out for itself as an important player in Initiative colonization efforts. They even had access to Heleus News Service updates now, thanks to the satellite uplink the Pathfinder team had just set up, and all of this was enough cause for celebration.

Still, after a week and a half back on Voeld, Sara Ryder was just going to have that celebration on board her ship, thanks. The inevitably doomed poker session around the vidconference table had dwindled down to just Jaal and Vetra being stubborn enough to keep handing over all their money to Gil, but the meeting room had a welcoming vibe to it and a spectacular view of the Nol system; everyone who wasn’t lingering around to just enjoy it kept drifting in and out while going about the rest of their business.

Sara had claimed one of the benches facing the aft viewports and dragged a supply crate over to use as a makeshift ottoman. She was leaning back against a pillow swiped from her bed with her feet propped up, a blanket over her legs, and a datapad in one hand. The bench was hardly as comfortable as the couch in her quarters, but tracking down Priya Blake’s missing science team turned out to be — well — a much bigger problem than it’d seemed to be, and fighting one of the Remnant Architects really took it out of a person. As did having to deliver that kind of bad news yet again.

Besides, this was . . . this was nice. No one telling her about problems that as the Pathfinder she felt obligated to help with; no cutting words and hostile glares from distrustful angara who’d been burned by the Nexus exiles; no crushing pressure, even if just for an hour or two, from knowing just how many people would be affected by the latest momentous decision hanging over her head. Just a small group of people she trusted with her life, who’d all been there for her at some moment or another when the stress of the job, compounded with her worries about Scott and the effort of untangling her complicated grief over her father, made her feel like she was drowning. On top of all that, what she’d seen in the exaltation facility, the lingering what-ifs of the choices she hadn’t made, still haunted her. Right now, she _needed_ this.

“I’m already thinking about it,” Liam said. He was stretched out on the other bench, his hands spread out wide in an enthusiastic gesture. “An outdoor vid festival, under the stars. We’ll be able to do that on Voeld someday.”

Suvi, perched on the edge of the vidconference table to watch the poker game, flicked a small bud of whatever Havarl flora Lexi was desperately trying to talk her out of eating this time at his head. “That won’t be for years yet! The vault’s fixing things, but the atmosphere isn’t going to be thick enough to retain enough heat for that for decades at least.”

“Ha!” Cora’s voice drifted up from the bio lab on the second deck. “You think that’s going to stop him?”

Vetra didn’t bother looking up from her cards, but she had to interject. “Spirits, are you kidding? Five hundred credits says he’s already got the entire festival planned out.”

“Better hope you’re right about that, Nyx,” Gil said cheerfully, “or you might not have the creds to pay up.”

Jaal peered down at his own cards with an implacable expression. “Don’t worry, Vetra. I’ve already sent him a list of angaran classics to add to the lineup.”

“Oh!” Kallo piped up over the comm. “Can I add a few suggestions? My collection of vintage salarian dramas isn’t big, but it’s well curated, I assure you.”

Liam sighed good-naturedly. “Oh, here we go again. I haven’t even finished planning that movie night here.”

“Should’ve known this was coming, Kosta,” Gil said, smirking. “Hey, Ryder, you in for the next round?”

Sara waved a hand. “Nah. I’m good, as long as I don’t have to move from this seat until tomorrow.” She was exhausted, to tell the truth; life-support systems notwithstanding, that kind of extreme cold sapped the energy of anyone without Jaal’s easily-adaptable angaran physiology, and she and Peebee would both be feeling it for days.

Speaking of.

There was Peebee, of which Sara was painfully aware because even without SAM’s help she was _always_ painfully aware of whenever Peebee walked into the room, coming up the ramp from the second deck at a slightly slower pace than usual with a pair of steaming hot mugs in her hands.

“Hi,” she said, and held one out to Sara. “Whatever Drack’s cooking should be done soon — smells fabulous, by the way — but he sent up some hot chocolate. Said you and I could probably use it.” With that, she dropped down onto the bench, promptly stole half the blanket, and made herself comfortable.

“Hey,” Sara protested, but she could feel one side of her mouth threatening to twitch up into a grin. “I was using that.”

“To what? Just sit there and look pretty? Not saying that’s a waste, but you could at least share, since Liam won’t,” Peebee retorted. She stretched out, leaning her head back, and let her boots hit the top of the crate with a dramatic thump. “Ah,” she declared, and let out a long, happy sigh of relief. “There we go. Yes, that’s better.”

It was better, Sara thought, and set her mug down instead of taking a sip, because in between that ‘sit there and look pretty’ comment and the close-but-not-quite-close-enough distance between them she was distracted enough that she’d probably just burn herself trying.

Could anyone blame her, though, really? Slouched back into the bench like this, with her eyes closed and most of the guardedness in the way she usually held herself set aside, Peebee reminded Sara of a cat comfortable enough around a person to roll over with its belly exposed. It almost made her want to —

“Oh.” She pulled her hand back just in time, before her fingertips could brush against Peebee’s crests, but the only thing she could do to cover it up was flop her arm awkwardly across the back of the couch, and then pretend to tuck a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. “Sorry.”

Ah yes. The famed Ryder smoothness struck again. So impressive.

Peebee, her eyes still closed, let out a low and knowing laugh that did even more uncomfortable but not at all unpleasant things to Sara's insides. “Oh, so you were paying attention after all, were you? When you —”

Sara blinked. “Huh?”

“— said exactly that, yes. Come on, Pathfinder, keep up.” Oh, right. That time in the Nomad, when Peebee made a loud show of pretending they were having sex just to get Jaal to admit he wasn’t really asleep. Peebee’s eyes were open now, and alight with the kind of lively mischief that was _really not helping at all_ with Sara’s desperate attempt to maintain her composure, especially now that she realized what Peebee was referring to.

She’d nearly driven over the side of a mountain cliff, and _not_ on purpose for once.

“I, um.” What were words and how did they work again? There was already a loop of replays that had a good chance of running through Sara’s brain whenever Peebee was nearby, eating up mental bandwidth normally reserved for things like knowing how to form complete sentences. Peebee kneeling astride her chest, grinning down at her in the shadow of that first monolith on Eos; the sly smile on her face in the escape pod after their first trip here, when she’d made that offer of zero-gravity ‘stress relief;’ the way she got excited when poking at some bit of Rem-tech yielded a new discovery. Now all of those were overlaid on a backing track of the sounds Peebee had been making in the Nomad, and she was kicking herself all over again for saying something as cheesy as _I’d want it to mean something_ , and this was embarrassing so could she just die now?

SAM’s voice cut in over her private channel. _[Pathfinder, might I suggest you seek medical attention?]_

“What?” she blurted out loud, earning a curious but highly amused look from Peebee.

_[I’m reading a spike in your body temperature, heart rate, and neural functions, disproportionate to any present outside stimuli.]_

Of all the word choices . . . “SAM, don’t worry about it, okay?” She heard Peebee try (not very hard) to smother a snicker. “Trust me.”

_[Very well, Pathfinder. I will continue monitoring your vital signs, just to be sure.]_

Not helping. So not helping.

_“Anwar, get back here with that right now!”_

That was Cora’s voice, and both Sara and Peebee snorted with laughter at the sight of Suvi tearing up the ramp at full speed with a bright magenta vegetable-looking thing held triumphantly aloft in one hand, Cora right on her heels.

Sara glanced across the room to see Lexi toss her datapad aside and leap to her feet, making a lunging grab at the plant in Suvi’s hand. “Suvi, for the last time, _you are not eating that. No._ ”

“Is she — not again!” Kallo yelped over the comm.

“Wait, wait!” Vetra pulled up her omni-tool. “Someone has to get this on vid!”

“Heeeeey, people, come on,” Sara yelled, but there wasn’t any heat in her tone. She watched for a moment as Suvi tried to dart one way and then another around the vidconference table only to find herself caught in a rundown between Lexi and Cora.

“Suvi, I got you! Toss it here!” called Liam from the bottom of the starboard ramp.

Drack’s voice came over the comm, a gruff, affectionate growl. “You kids gonna get it out of your systems in time for dinner? It’s almost ready.”

Gil crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the aft viewport railing, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. “You were right, Ryder. It is a zoo.”

“Told you. Want to get your subjects in line, o Mongoose King?”

He frowned at her, mock-injured, but turned away to start clearing up the cards. “I’m a crow! ‘s what I said, innit?”

Sara laughed. “Caw caw, motherfucker.”

Peebee leaned over, nudged her in the ribs with an elbow. “Shouldn’t that be ‘quack quack,’ coming from you?”

“Oh, we are _not_ bringing that up agai—” Sara turned to give her a playful glare, and — oh, help, Peebee’s face was _right there_ , challenge in her eyes and her lips quirked up in . . .

Her lips.

Her right there, absolutely not the ones Sara kept thinking about kissing, nope, not at all, lips.

Um.

“Okay, focus, Ryder, focus,” she told herself.

Peebee’s head tilted slightly. “What was that?”

“Nothing!” Oh, god. She’d said that out loud, and to top it off her voice had just squeaked, hadn’t it? Maybe SAM could just take over and let her sink completely into the bench now.

“How many people get to see the Pathfinder this flustered, huh?” Peebee was outright smirking at her now, and it was completely unfair of Sara’s brain to think that was hot. “Hmmmm. It’s adorable, really.”

She registered the faint sensation of tugging fabric as the blanket shifted, and then the shock of cool fingertips, sneaking up under the hem of her shirt to trace a teasing line just above her waistband, cut through all the panicked screaming in her brain.

Until it set off a second line of internal screaming, in harmony with the first.

“In fact,” Peebee drawled, adding a few elaborate little loops and squiggles to the line she was tracing against Sara’s skin, “it really has no right to be as attractive as it is.” She kept her voice low, conspiratorial, but Sara was barely even aware of Gil chuckling while Vetra and Jaal tried to plot ways to beat him next time, or Lexi giving Suvi a lecture en route to the medbay.

She gulped, and cringed inwardly when she realized just how wide her eyes had gotten. “It — um — thanks?”

Peebee laughed again and slid just the tiniest bit closer, hooking her fingers into Sara’s waistband for a brief moment as she did. “Why so stunned? I thought you liked it when I flirt with you.”

Sara nodded, unable to formulate so much as a simple one-word response when her senses were fogged with the scent of warm leather and her brain was busy screaming about how _oh god maybe she wasn’t just messing around in the Nomad oh god MAYBESHEMEANTIT_. She somehow managed to scrape together the presence of mind to rest her hand just above Peebee’s knee and give it a light squeeze.

“Oh, Ryder! Are you sure? Here? Now?” It had been distracting enough when Peebee had said that in the Nomad, and it was — she couldn’t mentally calculate how many times more distracting it was when she could actually see the devilish glint in Peebee’s eyes and her own thought process was reduced to an endless stream of _kissmekissmepleaseI’mdyingherejustdoit_. “But everyone’s right here . . .”

Sara thought she remembered how vocal cords worked, opened her mouth — and managed a tiny, pleading whimper. Great. Her death of sheer embarrassment was imminent.

Except — Peebee seemed incredibly pleased by that reaction, from the way her grin broadened and she hooked one ankle over both of Sara’s. “They’re all far too innocent to be exposed to _that_ ,” she said, and put such a suggestive lilt into the last word that Sara was surprised to find herself not passing out from lightheadedness on the spot. “But maybe stop by my place later, and we’ll see.”

Sara sagged a little bit, though whether from disappointment or relief she couldn’t quite tell so she’d assume it was a mixture of both. She did, however, note that Peebee hadn’t moved away, or stopped lightly stroking her skin.

“Maybe later,” she agreed in a dazed voice.

Peebee looked at her for a long moment, considering, then — what was that look on her face? Had that been the wrong thing to say?

“Good. I’ll leave the light on for you.”

. . . oh.

“Somewhere a little more comfortable would be nice,” Peebee went on, her tone suddenly much more casual. “Ugh, you know the downside of living on a ship as nice as this one? You get used to comfort. I can fall asleep almost anywhere, no problem, but now I catch myself thinking about how I could stand to be more comfortable.”

Sara half wanted to scream in frustration, but opted to pick up her mug of not-so-hot-any-more chocolate and take a sip instead. Much as she’d wanted this conversation to keep going in a different direction, she also didn’t want Peebee to get up and leave. “Right? Some of the expeditions my team used to go on, we were lucky if we got folding cots. We learned not to notice the rocks and the insects after a while.”

“It was all kaerkyns and spitbugs the first few months I spent poking around on Eos,” Peebee said; she’d slowed the pace, but she was still running her thumb back and forth along Sara’s abdomen. “Not a fan of waking up next to those, let me tell you.”

“Something else you’d rather wake up to?” Sara asked before she could stop herself, then winced as Peebee’s expression grew a touch more distant.

“Mmm,” was all she said. “I might be able to think of a few things.”

Shit. Shit shit shit, why had she _said_ that? Why —

Peebee didn’t say anything further, but her eyes drifted shut and her fingers curled a little bit tighter into Sara’s waistband; it wasn’t quite a possessive gesture, but definitely a suggestive one, and Sara felt herself relax a little bit more.

“Maybe I’ll even tell you some of them,” Peebee went on, but a yawn cut her off. “Mmm. Maybe later. Sleepy.”

“It was a rough week,” agreed Sara. “You sure you don’t want to —”

There was a weight against her shoulder, warm and just a little bit yielding, and she laughed softly. “Guess you really can fall asleep anywhere.”

The comm snapped on, filling the ship with Drack’s low growl. “Dinner’s ready. Get your asses down here before I eat it all.”

The sound of laughter and eager chatter retreated down the corridor as the crew started toward the galley, and after a moment it was only Vetra left, leaning back against the table and shaking her head with a distinctly amused twitch of her mandibles.

“The turian military would be scandalized to death by this bunch,” she muttered affectionately, then tilted her chin in Peebee’s direction. “I’d ask if you two are coming down to dinner, but . . .”

Sara’s arm was half numb, but she was enjoying the warm weight of Peebee asleep against her shoulder too much to care; she let out a nervous, shaky laugh.

“Nah, let her sleep. It was a rough last few days.”

Vetra nodded and pushed away from the table. “I’ll get Cora to bring up a couple of plates for you. Oh, and Ryder — try and stop freaking out long enough to get some rest yourself?”

Sara could feel her ears burning. “I’m not — what — no!”

_[Biometric data concurs with Vetra’s assessment, Pathfinder,]_ SAM interjected. And not even on their private channel, the technological jerk. _[Brain activity and hormonal levels are currently higher than necessary to achieve sleep.]_

Sara groaned and slapped her free hand over her face. “SAM . . .”

“I’ve seen you biotic charge a small horde of kett with a hell of a lot more calm than you have going on right now.” Vetra chuckled as she turned to head down the ramp. “Word of advice, Ryder? Relax. Enjoy it.”

“But —” Wait, wasn’t that what she’d said to Peebee on their fun but ultimately innocent zero-G float?

“ _Relax_ ,” Vetra repeated. “Look, I know dealing with people doesn’t always come as easy to you as dealing with ancient tech does. Just trust me on this one, okay?”

“I don’t want to move,” Sara finally admitted in a tiny voice. “If she wakes up . . .”

Vetra held up her hand. “Ryder. _Sara_. When have you ever seen Peebee let anyone into her personal space for even a fraction of the time she’s been sitting there tonight?”

Sara considered that for a moment — considered a dozen other little encounters between the two of them, and the fact that Peebee could have just thrown her out of the escape pod immediately, rather than let her witness a rare moment of vulnerability. For all that Peebee talked about how she could leave whenever she felt like it, how she didn’t like to let anyone in . . . here she was, half wrapped around Sara and not looking like she was inclined to move any time soon.

“Mmm-hmm.” Vetra must have seen the look on her face when everything clicked, because she certainly looked smug now. “Try and get some rest, okay? SAM and I will make sure the others give you some privacy.”

She gestured toward the blanket and gave Sara a little wink, then strode off on her way to the galley.

“Just relax,” Sara muttered to herself, and took a deep breath before she carefully pulled the blanket up to cover Peebee as well as herself. “Right. I can do that. Not that hard. Right?”

But relaxation wasn’t really happening, and she ended up just staring out the viewport for several minutes before Cora came up to set two plates on the end table beside her.

“Thanks,” she mouthed silently, and got a brief nod from her second. The food looked delicious: some kind of roast, with vegetables and mashed potatoes that were probably reconstituted but still a luxury under current circumstances. Wherever Vetra managed to get a hold of them, she wasn’t going to tell, not that Sara would have asked anyway.

“The party moved downstairs to Liam’s horrible couch,” Cora told her, “and I’ll be in the bio lab if you need anything.” Businesslike as always, she didn’t wait for a response, turning and heading back down the way she’d come up.

The bio lab doors had barely hissed shut when she felt Peebee stir. “Ryder?” she mumbled faintly, lifting her head from Sara’s shoulder. “Wha’happened . . . ‘d everybody go??”

“Oh, not much. You fell asleep,” Sara replied, and tried her best to ignore how cute Peebee looked when she was sleepy and how it made her stomach perform an exuberant interpretive dance routine to quantify it. “Slept right through the dinner stampede, but Drack made sure to save some for us. We could eat, and then if you want to go crash. . .”

“Nuh-uh.” Peebee dropped her head back down onto Sara’s shoulder. “Sleep’s good. More of that, please,” she said through another yawn.

Despite the fact that her arm was completely and totally numb now, Sara just laughed and felt a wave of pure giddiness crash over her as she dared to lean over and brush a light kiss against the top of Peebee’s head.

_[Pathfinder.]_ SAM’s voice suddenly echoed in her head, and she was suddenly very, very glad that her AI had decided to go mostly quiet for the last hour or so. _[If you like, I can modulate your brain activity to help induce sleep.]_

“Nah, SAM,” she murmured. “Thanks, but I think I’m good.”

She could swear SAM had picked up the art of deadpan delivery somewhere, because there was an almost dry tone to his voice. _[In that case, let me at least encourage your circulatory system not to neglect your right arm — though I don’t understand why you find this kind of discomfort a cause for happiness]_ , he added as she broke out into an uncontrollable grin.

“Congratulations, you’ve learned something new today. Just go with it, okay? Seriously, SAM, I’m fine.”

She settled back, let her head rest gently against Peebee’s, and looked out at the stars sparkling in the darkness outside the viewport. Whatever Andromeda had to offer them, she still couldn’t wait to find out; no chance of her letting it pass her by, not with the thrill of discovery in her blood. As for Peebee, and whatever this . . . thing was between the two of them, well, she’d just have to find out where it was leading, too.

She was figuring out the Pathfinder thing as she went along; maybe this wasn’t all that different, after all.

“Just enjoy this,” she murmured, her eyes finally drifting halfway shut. “Okay. Yeah. I can do that.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was actually in the middle of another, longer ME:A fic when a prompt given to me by a friend caught my attention, so I wrote this in a dead heat over two days. It’s the first thing I’ve successfully completed in just over three years, and I’m kind of really proud of that, so I’d like to thank Bioware for the adorkable gift that is Ryder, and also the priceless bit of squad banter between Peebee and Jaal that's referenced here. That's really what inspired this whole thing.
> 
> Title is from “Say So,” by Sara Watkins.


End file.
